Sometimes I stumble across a band who is different from the norm, but not in a way that I can immediately appreciate, or even really notice. You know the type of rock band I'm talking about - they get recommended in earnest by a trusted friend, and you give them a listen, but you can't see how the vocals, guitar tones, rhythms, whatever, differ all that much from standard, no-frills modern rock. So you try one more time, deciding to be patient because these guys aren't bad; they're just not standing out all that much. And suddenly it hits you that they're throwing subtle curveballs at you. The song's don't go down the musical avenues that you'd expect, or the lyrics are saying something witty and subversive that you didn't catch the first time. Or maybe it's just, wow, these guys are really tight for such a simple band with only three guys. These are all things that I slowly began to discover about House of Heroes this past summer.

House of Heroes (or HoH, to use a slightly humorous acronym) is an energetic young three-piece band from Columbus, Ohio. They're from the same home state as their Gotee Records label mates Relient K and John Reuben - you may have heard lead singer Tim Skipper on a few of Reuben's songs if you're a fan, and as far as Relient K is concerned, you might consider House of Heroes to be a possible successor to the ever-popular pop-punk band who is also known for songs that evolve and change rather than always reverting to the same verse/chorus mold. House of Heroes isn't pop-punk, exactly - you can hear echoes of some of that genre's catchier bands, but they're less polished, not to the point of being sloppy, but definitely less glossy. There's a bit of Jimmy Eat World to their overall sound, but there's something a little more subversive about the lyrics. Listen more carefully and you might hear echoes of Anberlin.

But then, there are these theatrical elements here and there, which hearken back to rock bands from an earlier time, when not every catchy single had to rocket through three simple minutes of four-on-the-floor drum beats and never switch up the tempo. HoH is a band that delights in throwing you off ever so slightly, zigging when a normal pop/rock band would zag, and yet maintaining a keen ability to put a smile on the listener's face with their quirkiness. Does anyone here remember a classic Christian pop/rock band by the name of PfR? HoH doesn't have that whole Beatles thing going on, but the solid and sometimes off-kilter wall of sound that they construct with their tight three-man unit makes them feel a lot like a modern, punked-up PfR at times. You just have to mind that there's not as much layering to the vocals. That's OK, not every band needs to have sweet harmonies in order to crank out strong melodies.

I'm finding that "something special" that HoH has a bit difficult to describe, but whatever it is, it keeps me coming back to Say No More, which is actually version 2.0 of their full-length debut record from 2005. For whatever reason, someone saw potential and gave this band a shot at casting their net a little wider. So the respectable collection of songs known simply as House of Heroes got two extra songs slapped into the middle of it (songs that sound well thought-out, like they should have been part of the album all along), and it was re-released in 2006 as Say No More. The two faces staring at each other, which grace the new cover, aptly depict the relationship troubles that dominate the second half of this CD, but there's something else going on here besides the ever-popular whining about girls. Listen closely to some of the material they've written, and beneath the metaphors you'll uncover pointed commentary on the music industry, a call to action for those who are apathetic toward the poor, a dissection of the fragile male ego, and even an incognito Christmas carol. Cerebral stuff, but no so much that you can't enjoy it while driving at full speed with the top down. That's the secret to House of Heroes' recipe - give 'em something fun and then throw in some pointed thoughts as a little monkey wrench when they're not expecting it. Occasionally this leads to a song which sprawls out more than it should as it attempts to tell a story or prove a point, but for the most part, this band lives up to its name with this heroic stomp through the modern rock playground, knocking a couple of big bullies off of the swings along the way.

Buckets for Bullet Wounds
Shut up if you want to get paid
What's your option?
Cold corruption or starvation?
If the first song's title sounds a bit grizzly, then well, that's because it is. With punching drums and stabbing guitar licks, the guys point about 100 degrees away from "feel-good" on the emotional compass, with lyrics that describe a world where no agents of healing exist, and all anyone cares about when you get shot is that you don't bleed on their carpet. It's a song that rails against apathy and selling out - as the chorus slickly transitions into a fun 6/8 romp, Tim Skipper acknowledges a group of pathetic yes-men who lack the courage to stand up to their oppressors: "See how they open up the gates for those who push them over. Oh, the cold composure." This is punctuated by a cry of "I'm not afraid to die tonight!" and another slick downshift back into the edgy verse. The little vocal nuances help push this one over the top, with a slight bit of Tim's falsetto imitating one of his guitar riffs, and there's even an unexpected, mellow acoustic interlude partway through the song, where he croons about the big, bad wolf having pups in his kitchen, which he humorously decides to deal with by selling the pups for money. If this all seems a bit ludicrous, give it a few tries, because it's a tightly woven song that really seems to be about the coldness of industry, particularly the world of Christian music, where money is mostly made by sticking to happy thoughts, and anyone who dares to admit to their wounds is quickly shown the door. Do we have doctors, nurses, healers among us? Or are we just a bunch of shameless huckster salesmen? It's food for thought.

Fast Enough
If you were the queen, who would you choose for a king?
Or would you rather be free, or like a dog on a chain?
I'm not so sure all things are as you say...
This song revs its engines up as the band prepares to explore the uneasy life of a girl whose desires can never be satiated. AJ Babcock's bass manages to rumble through the surface here, especially during the quieter verses, which seem to describe the girl's life as a timer rapidly running out, hinting that her dissatisfaction is leading her to wound herself as part of her desperate search for a new thrill. There's some great interplay between Tim and AJ here, as if they're two guys throwing rocks at this girl's window, wanting her to step out of her dark abyss and into the daylight. The song doesn't flow as tightly as "Buckets" did, but it maintains its own creepy, sneaking-up-on-you sort of momentum, culminating in a bridge where one the guys is making vocal sounds that sound like a dog panting or something, and then as the two guys' voices begin to overlap, the song suddenly comes stomping up to an abrupt stop, instead of returning to the chorus like you would've expected.

Friday Night
I like myself on the following conditions:
That I’m better than the next guy at everything I'm into
And my looks are important if i'm less sophisticated
And my girlfriend's a bombshell, and i'm all she's ever dated...
For a lot of people, this is going to be the most instantly catchy song on the record. There's something about starting a song immediately with the chorus hook that makes it stand out rather effortlessly. The Jimmy Eat World influence is obvious here - I'm actually reminded of their "Authority Song" since there's talk of a "record machine" and the song's about a guy not wanting to be caught spending his Friday nights alone. It's about trying to woo a girl into going on a date with him - or is it that simple? Tim's words indicate a lot of mischief and cocky ego lurking underneath the service, as he spells out why his goal of not being alone is important, and what things need to fall into place in order for him to feel like the prototypical macho man. It's a wonderfully ironic match - insanely memorable chorus melody with thick power chords, and lyrics that poke holes in the very same bravado that the music is trying to build up. Tim gets very near to the point of exasperated yelping near the end of the song, as if he is literally "dying by the record machine" because his little temper tantrum isn't getting him any attention. There's some great guitar fuzz during the bridge, and all three band members get a good chance to bang around a bit, despite the seemingly breezy sound that the song tricks you with at first.

The Invisible Hook
You want a genocide?
We can avert our eyes tonight
You keep us entertained
We'll overlook your bloodstained hands...
MORE COWBELL! Uh, sorry, I got a little too excited there. This song, one of the two new tracks on Say No More, is where the Anberlin comparison I made earlier is most apt (think "The Undeveloped Story" if you're a fan of that band) - it's got a sinister, murky atmosphere in its whispered voices, only to later open up into a chorus that seems to mock its own catchiness. It's not all frivolous self-reference, though, because the "invisible hook" that we're told to dance to is really there to distract us from the ugliness mentioned in the verses - genocide, famine, disease, etc. Real issues that real humans have to deal with, and we consumers don't give a damn. That's not to say that we can't spend money on anything that entertains us - but are we allowing entertainers to challenge us about the need to care for our fellow humans, or are we just cranking up catchy songs to drown out the sound of suffering? Tim sounds rightfully frustrated at our collective ineffectiveness - "We could have changed the world five times, if only we could open our eyes!"

Mercedes Baby
I sell my passion for a dime
Unto a thousand hungry eyes
I covet kingdoms crumbling
What will we do when the fickle flee?
Speaking of Anberlin, this one's got more of a carefree "Autobahn" sort of vibe to it, but a little thicker and heavier, and the gang vocal approach to the chorus just bumrushes you with another unbelievable hook. You could almost write this one off as superficial excess about pretty girls and cars, but there's something else here, something about her celebrity status starting to fade, and maybe she has to choose between an old life and a new one where she can escape with the guy who's singing to her - "Do it for love, not for money." OK, so maybe it's still a bit frivolous despite my attempt to dig deeper, but it's a great pop song with a hard candy shell.

Serial Sleepers
Rise up, oh sons of God
And sing the song that hides behind your teeth...
House of Heroes' biggest weakness might come to the forefront when they slow down. Vocally, Tim is still wailing away as passionately as ever, right from the first second of this song which seems to be directed at a church full of hapless zombies, but the band brings the tempo to medium-speed, repetitive power chord sludge, and as a result, it feels like this short song still manages to overstay its welcome. The message is perhaps the most unabashedly Christian of any song on the album, referring to the Biblical concept of believers being asleep in the light, not serving much Earthly good because they're just wrapped up in constructed fantasies about Heaven and they don't care to affect any change here on Earth. The band doesn't give us a lot to go on lyrically, which is part of the song's problem, but one line does rise above the mess loud and clear: "Save our souls from all our dreams come true." Following the song, there's a brief instrumental jam of light and slightly off-beat drumming while a guitar quietly noodles around. It's rather useless, I think.

Make a Face Like You Mean It (Vampires)
All the kids want to rock
But they don't want to sit through another boring chorus
One or two at the top might give you a shot
But they don't want to risk any losses...
Now we move from zombies to vampires, as the band brings back the fun factor, complete with a little bit of off-kilter rhythmic trickery and excellent use of both vocalists as Tim and AJ trade off barbs about the music industry, likening it to a bunch of vampires looking for fresh blood to suck dry. (Radiohead wrote a song about this once, but what HoH has going on here is easily ten times as fun.) Drummer Colin Rigsby navigates his way through this obstacle course of vocal ping-pong and start-stop riffing with great expertise. The guys sound so frustrated, and yet it's so engrossing: "Puppets don't sing! Puppets just dance!" Thank God someone who has a little bit of working knowledge of the Christian music industry isn't afraid to call its suck-every-fad-dry-two-years-later tactics out for what they are.

Metaphor in Parentheses
I've left behind all the "whens" and the "whys"
Seems like I waste all my time making rhymes
I could spend all of mine inside these lines...
This one's probably the most engaging of the "slow" numbers on this record - it's got a leisurely 6/8 rhythm that sways back and forth like a ship in rough water, laying the guitars on thick at times just to make sure that the lyrics pack a little extra punch. Admittedly they kind of need it, since this is a rather vague song about a "beautiful girl", one who is either struggling to believe, or Tim is struggling to believe in her. What's amusing/ingenious/just plain odd about this song is the way that the chorus shamelessly bites off a melody from the well-known Christmas carol "We Three Kings". It has nothing to do with anything and it really shouldn't work, but as the build-up of "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful GIRL!" occurs where you'd usually expect to be singing "Field and fountain, moor and mountain", it's hard to deny that it's an inventive reuse of a timeless melody in an unexpected new context.

You Are the Judas of the Cheerleading Squad
I've slept in the belly of the beast
Now I'll sleep under your wings
Forged in the fire, and the fire, it burns in me...
Alright, I challenge any rock band (aside from obnoxious grindcore bands who come up with titles that it takes longer to say than it does to play the song) to come up with a more amusing song title than this one. The second new track for the re-released album runs the gamut between light, chimey guitar parts with soft, not-quite-discernable vocals in falsetto, and heavy, relentless, crunching riffage. It's perhaps the most disjointed of the upbeat songs - just when you're nodding your head to the thick rhythm, it'll loosen up, or even dissipate completely at one point. Yet that main line that comes through the chorus - "Forged in the fire, and the fire, it burns in me!" is delivered with enough strength and passion to linger in your head for days. I can't even pretend to tell you what this one is about, but I love its wicked cool shouts of "I bet you had it coming!" and the multiple phases that the song passes through (it's a bit of a long one) before hammering its final riff into your skull and then shutting down abruptly.

Pulling Back the Skin
I would like to see you, only if to see you cry
I would like to kiss you, only to kiss you goodbye
At best I've bad intentions, and at worst I'd rather die
Than see you with another guy...
Remember the total A-hole from "Friday Night"? Well, I think Tim must be channeling that guy, because as soon as this song begins, he's sitting there all dejected, muttering, "No, I don't want you back, but I don't want you with him". The sentiments expressed toward an ex-girlfriend here are among the meanest of the mean, insinuating that since he can't love her, he's going to make no pretense about his desire to see the other guy become as miserable as he is. What's the point of spewing forth all of this bile? Well, I think the song's an admission of how much he's scared by his own hateful tendencies. When he pulls back the skin (there's another icky analogy alert for those of you who didn't like "Buckets for Bullet Wounds"), he's shocked to find that she still lingers about in his consciousness, in the tension of his muscles, in the rapid beating of his heart, and he just wants to get her out any way that he possibly can. The song nervously stutters about, moving between a fluid, danceable rhythm, and more of the straight-ahead angry guitar approach, and once again, it's this band's ability to shift dynamics back and forth so effortlessly that wins me over. Furthermore, I know what this feels like. At one point in my life about five years ago, I became so bitter after being unceremoniously dumped for another guy that I found every excuse to say vicious things about my ex, digging those old memories up like voodoo dolls to stick pins in, expecting that to hurt her instead of me. One can only do that for so long before realizing how truly disgusting it makes you. So I appreciate that these guys can put it into words in such an unflinching manner.

The Bois D'Arc Circus
Technically, this short instrumental track isn't listed on Say No More, but it was on the original House of Heroes CD and it appears at the end of "Pulling Back the Skin" on Say No More, instead of as a separate track. Either way, the music is identical, and it's a teeny-tiny, rickety little electric solo with the chirping of crickets in the background, a total non-sequitur that interrupts the flow even more than the interlude after "Serial Sleepers", and it totally didn't deserve to be part of the revamped version of the album, so I'm pointing it out and docking the band a few cents for it.

Suicide Baby
I must be crazy, I never thought it would come to this
Or maybe it's suicide by small increments...
Despite the title (I believe it was originally called "Kamikaze Baby" on an earlier recording), this song isn't actually about suicide. (Go back to "Fast Enough" if you're looking for such subject matter.) It gets off to an awkward start with its fumbling verse, which can't seem to decide between 3/4 and 4/4, resulting in a clumsy grouping of two threes and two fours. Oh well, not all rhythmic experimentations work, after all. The chorus definitely works, with the shout-and response between the two guys offering another great hook, and between the two of them, they observe how continuing to hang on to the ghost of an ex-girlfriend is like "suicide by small increments". The song's basically a desperate please - "I can't lose you, 'cause you're my only one" won't win them any points in the creativity department, but the arrangement of the rest of the song (aside from the verses) sort of makes up for this.

Angels in Top Hats
Dolled up in white, wrapped up in tubes
You wore them so gracefully
Angels and demons were fighting for you
Your maidens do your bidding...
I've met some fans of HoH who think that this, their epic closing track is genius. I think it's all over the place, and a bit of a bummer following a mostly tight collection of songs. There are great elements here - all manner of swooping mechanical sound effects, a golden guitar riff that rings out at the beginning of the song, leading into a sensitive, bass-driven ode to a girl who has fallen into a coma after a car crash. The problem is that, both rhythmically and melodically, it never really conceals into anything more than snippets of a song. There's the chorus, which wavers about like a weaker version of "Metaphor in Parentheses" and which describes the uneasy mixture of angels watching over this girl and all of the medical tubes and wires and machines sustaining her and the "cups full of blood" - ick. This prayer for a sleeping soul being fought over by invisible forces eventually morphs into a bit of an angry rant, expressing both frustration and regret over the accident that put her here. The song sprawls out to nearly nine minutes, with the last minute being a slow fade wholly comprised of sound effects, and there are some neat musical bits in between, but none of it is convincing enough. The musical pastiche reminds me of The Fiery Furnaces on one of their bad days (except that it admittedly rocks more), and there's too much reliance on the studio for bells and whistles, a disconcerting way to end a record by a band which prides itself on being able to reproduce their record's raw sound impeccably in a live setting. (I'm guessing they generally don't play this one.) Some will be deeply, emotionally moved by it, and I don't know the heck else they could have ended this record, but let's just say that you should have a better idea of how to tie the sections of your song together before you go and get all prog-rock on your audience.

A slightly sour ending, perhaps, but that's one of few misfires on a highly engaging record by a promisingly enigmatic young band. Say No More is highly recommended listening for those who like no-nonsense rock without the gimmicking and posturing of some of the more popular "back to basics" garage-type bands of our era, or maybe some of the pop-punk stuff, too. It's a good alternative as far as Christian rock goes, without the guys having to wear fake halos and talk about goodie-two-shoes up in order to appease a conservative audience. That appeals to the rebel in me, and it might just give HoH a shot at a wider audience, even if I don't expect they'll ever be as huge as Switchfoot or anything. They're a niche band, but not a gimmicky one, and in today's market, that's a breath of fresh air.

ALBUM WORTH:
Buckets for Bullet Wounds $2
Fast Enough $1
Friday Night $2
The Invisible Hook $1.50
Mercedes Baby $1.50
Serial Sleepers $.50
Make a Face Like You Mean It (Vampires) $1.50
Metaphor in Parentheses $1
You Are the Judas of the Cheerleading Squad $1
Pulling Back the Skin $1.50
(The Bois D'Arc Circus -$.50)
Suicide Baby $1
Angels in Top Hats $.50
TOTAL: $14.50 (or $12 for the original House of Heroes album)

Band Members:
Tim Skipper: Lead vocals, guitars
AJ Babcock: Bass, vocals
Colin Rigsby: Drums

Websites:
http://www.thehouseofheroes.com
http://www.myspace.com/houseofheroes

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving